


Bleach

by LinksLipsSinkShips



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Blood, F/F, Jealousy, M/M, Murder, Violence, Wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 18:44:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11167827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinksLipsSinkShips/pseuds/LinksLipsSinkShips
Summary: A simple conversation gets so very, very out of hand.





	Bleach

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not proud of this. I mean... It's dark. I dreamed it, and I decided to write it, and... it's messed up, you guys.
> 
> Thanks to @RhinkiPoo who was kind enough to listen to my very bizarre bad dream.

“Oh, Fuck… fuck… please wake up, oh my God, wake up,” Rhett shook her, feeling the blood pulse through his hands as he pressed them to her temple. She was limp in his arms, red staining as it dripped down her face, all over his shirt. “Come on, please, wake up.” A sob choked at Rhett’s throat. What was he going to do?

He pressed his hands to her chest, hoping to stir some life back in, pushing rhythmically, then pressing his lips against hers. Her lips were caked in blood, and as he came up for air to breathe into her lungs again, his dripped with blood, too. He wanted to get it off of him, and his skin crawled at the thought of it as it trickled down his chin. 

Rhett wanted to run, he wanted to hide, he wanted to do something about this, he wanted her to wake up, but none of that was happening, so he let out a guttural scream into the foul, stale air in the room. What had he done?

_“You shouldn’t be here, Rhett. You shouldn’t be in here, you shouldn’t even have been a part of any of this!” She spat the words at him with fury. What had he done to earn this woman’s hatred?_  

Rhett snapped back to reality, to the present, his eyes darting around the room. The vase, he saw the vase on the ground, cracked into several large pieces, smaller ones scattered into tiny fractions of the whole. The weight of it was nothing to him… it wasn’t until it crashed down on her skull with that gut-wrenching sound that he realized how heavy it was. 

He didn’t know what else he could have done. Run, maybe? But that would have been running away from everything, including his best friend, into this life that Link didn’t deserve to have to face, especially not alone. No, Rhett couldn’t have picked the “flight” side of his fight or flight needs in that moment. It was fight or nothing. Fight or let Link get stuck in this for the rest of his life. Fight or lose everything that ever meant anything to him.

_She was a vision standing at the altar, practicing for the upcoming wedding. She smiled at Link, at the minister, as they practiced their vows. But when she looked at Rhett, there was something far more sinister in his eyes. It was like he was the only one in the room who could read beyond the surface, see the evil lurking below._  

His attempts at CPR were completely unsuccessful. She was laying there, limp, and her limbs started to feel cold. Fuck. How had he done this? Link would never forgive him. Should he just run and pray no one ran the fingerprints? Should he try cleaning up and then leave? There’s no way he could face his friend after this.

Except that’s exactly when he had to. The door opened, and there was Link. “Honey, I’m ba…. Oh. Oh, God. Oh… my God… what…” 

Link’s blue eyes lit up in terror at the scene. His knees started to buckle, but Rhett, knowing Link would never be able to handle blood, caught him and lowered him carefully to the ground.

_“You’re a low-life piece of shit, McLaughlin.” Those were the last words she said to him as she charged at him, shoving him against the wall. She was so small, so much smaller than his 6-foot-7 frame, but she was fiery, intense, and she held a hatred for him that ran deep. She punched and wailed on him, first splitting his lip open, then drawing out a small cut on his eyebrow as her engagement ring landed on the intended target again and again. Rhett cowered, which you wouldn’t expect from such a large figure, but he wasn’t willing to hurt her. Or so he thought. “You think I don’t see it? You think I don’t see you helping him adjust his tie and see the feelings you have for him? I’m not stupid, McLaughlin” she had said before she started on this tirade. Her words weren’t off the mark at all, no. Rhett did love Link. He loved him with a burning passion that was indescribably. But he never would have taken Link from her… never. He would have watched from afar and he would have moved on. He knew that. Clearly, she didn’t know that. He pushed her backward off of him, trying to stop the blows that were happening one after another._  

Link blinked his blue eyes, trying to take in the scene without fainting. “What happened, Rhett?”

Rhett choked a sob out, and Link pushed his finger to Rhett’s bottom lip, wiping at the blood. “Why is there blood on your lip?” 

“I tried, man, I fucking tried. I tried so hard to save her, I did, I swear.” 

“Rhett. Look at me. What happened?” Link knew that if he turned his focus away from Rhett’s eyes, he’d see the blood all over again and he’d faint, or vomit, or something. Nothing good, no, not now. 

“I tried to save her. She just wouldn’t stop hitting me. She was beating the crap out of me and I… I….” Rhett stammered. How could he tell his best friend that he was at fault for this? How could he say “man, I’m so sorry, I know you were supposed to marry her in a few days but now she’s dead so just forgive me, okay?” He couldn’t say that.

“Take me through slowly, Rhett. Don’t rush, don’t panic. Tell me exactly what happened.”

Rhett surely couldn’t tell Link everything. No, there was no way he could tell Link that it all started because she was angry that he was in love with Link, too. He couldn’t admit that to his best friend, and he wouldn’t be convincing if he tried to play it off as her jealousy. 

“She was just… she was mad at me. And she shoved me, and I didn’t want her to get hurt so I let her. She started hitting me, pounding at me with her fists, with her ring. She split my lip open and my eyebrow. I just wanted it to stop, so I shoved her.” Rhett wasn’t sure that he had taken a breath in saying any of that, but he noticed Link was still staring into his eyes. He refused to take even a fleeting glance at the room, or even his bride-to-be laying in the floor.

“What happened when you shoved her?” 

 _She started to place her hands beside her on the ground to stand up, but the slam against the table was too hard, and as she stood, the already-teetering vase fell off of the table, smashing into her head. The vase cracked, a thick shard slicing through her arm, blood running from both her head wound and her arm wound at once. Rhett rushed over and tried to stop the bleeding, but it was too much blood, too quickly, and her eyes fluttered half-closed._  

“She… the vase… it fell… God, Link, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I’ll call 911.” 

“Rhett, no.” Link’s voice was firm, steady. “You’re not going to call 911. They’ll see it, they’ll assume you killed her, and they’ll arrest you. Is that what you want?” 

“Link, I did kill her. I shoved her into a table. The vase fell. She died. I did that, I shoved her… It’s all my fault.” Tears streamed down Rhett’s face. Link reached a finger out and dried beneath one eye. 

“Rhett, we made an oath to each other. Blood brothers. Well, there’s… Lord, there’s a lot of blood here… but I’m not letting your life end because you two got into a fight. We’re going to figure this out.” How was Link so calm in all of this? “I just… I need a minute to breathe.” Link stood up and stepped out of the shack. Rhett wrapped his arms around his knees and just rocked gently back and forth, staring at her on the ground. He rocked forward and backward, forward and backward, praying that the movement would make him feel calm in a sea of eternal fear.

_“I don’t want him in the wedding,” Rhett heard her say. He wasn’t supposed to hear her. She was on the other side of the door, and she wasn’t as quiet as she thought she was. “I’ve given into the flowers you want, and the venue you want, and the guest list you want. I’ve cut several members of my family from the list to make room for more of yours without killing the budget. I’ve done all of this because I love you so much, and I want you to be happy on what’s supposed to be the most amazing day of your life, but I’m drawing the line here. Rhett’s going to be in the wedding, he’s going to be my best man, or there won’t be a wedding.” Rhett wished he would have been able to see her face in that moment. He was willing to bet she had a sense of anger, shock, and heartbreak in that moment. “Fine. But if you ever give me an ultimatum like that again, I swear to God, I’ll…” “Just… stop, okay? Just stop. It’s going to be fine.” Rhett walked away from the door. He’d already heard too much._  

As Link stepped back into the room, he took in the sight of all of the blood again. More prepared this time, he walked over to Rhett and extended a hand, pulling him up. 

“Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to clean the shit out of this place. I mean, completely. Top to bottom, every bit of it clean. We’re going to pack the gifts into your car. We’re going to pack her into my car. We’re going to drive. We’re going to drive until we literally cannot go any farther. And then we’re going to figure out what we’re going to do with her. And then we’re never, ever coming back here.”

“But people will know when neither of you shows up to your wedding, Link.”

“No. I’ll leave a note. I’ll say we couldn’t take the pressure of the wedding planning anymore. We eloped. And by the way, we decided we wanted to start a new life somewhere other than Buies Creek, so… see ya, don’t call." 

“And people will understand my disappearance how?” Rhett pondered. 

“We’re a package deal, man. And once we’re far enough away from here, we just change our look, and we’re gone. But we aren’t coming back. And we don’t get to say goodbye. I’m sorry, man. We just don’t.”

“Link, are you sure this is what you want?” Rhett hesitated. His friend just lost his bride. He just lost his whole future. Now he was giving up his whole world just to make sure Rhett didn’t take the fall for this? It didn’t seem right. “I can face the consequences, whatever they are. I can. And you can live, and try really hard to forget this.” 

“No. There’s no life without you. I told her you were going to be in the wedding, and that was final. She knew, she knew when we met that you and I were a package deal. We started this together, all the way back in first grade, partners in crime. We’re finishing this together.”

And with that, Link stepped outside to bring in a bottle of bleach.


End file.
